This invention relates to telecommunications apparatus and, in particular, to network interface units and building entrance protector units and having folding capabilities to provide relatively compact units.
Network interface units are known in the art and one such unit is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,363,440 ('440) of Daoud, and which is herein incorporated by reference. As discussed in the '440 patent, network interface units constitute the demarcation between the customer's equipment and the telephone network. In buildings including multiple subscribers, the network interface unit is typically mounted in a basement and includes an array of customer bridges, each bridge being coupled to an individual subscriber line. The bridges are typically coupled to the phone network through an RJ11 jack and plug so that the customer can plug a working phone into the jack to determine if any problems lie in the customer or network side of the telecommunications system.
Network interface units typically also include a building entrance protector portion which comprises a cable splice chamber and a protector field device for providing surge protection for each customer. Depending on the size or type of the components; e.g., fiber optics, wireless telephone, or coaxial equipment, to be mounted in a network interface unit to accommodate the needs of the customers in the building, the dimensions of the network interface unit may need to be adjusted, requiring various sized housings for different types of components, leading to different sized network interface units. This problem is addressed by the network interface unit having a single designed modular layer, arranged in a building block manner, to provide one device to satisfy the needs of the customers, as well as telecommunication industry, as more fully described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/143,315 having Attorney Docket Daoud 117. Although the network interface unit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/143,315 serves well its intended purpose, there remains a need to provide further network interface units that are even more compact so as to further reduce the overall space which the network interface units occupy.